Equality Before the Law

Equality before the law is a tremendous, impenetrable field and few would venture to accompany a guide through its brambles. By limiting myself in this chapter to jurisprudence (fiqh) and avoiding the crucial test of practice, I hope to come through unscathed. What you will find below is therefore equality before the law as premodern Muslim jurists treated it, regardless of whether that was a wishful construction confined to their works or reality. Due to the space allotted to the topic, elements of gender affecting legal capacity are necessarily covered separately (Chapter 10, below).